


Reflections

by Kate_Shepard



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Internal Monologue, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6643141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Shepard/pseuds/Kate_Shepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard thinks about her crew during the calm in the midst of the storm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> This got into my head and wouldn't leave.

I slide to a sitting position against the wall and pull out my canteen. Around me, others are doing the same. Some are quickly eating nutrient bars or paste. Some are checking their weapons. We’ve already divided out the remaining thermal clips and medigel so that we don’t end up with one person out while another has excess; though, I doubt excess is going to be a problem even though we’ve been raiding the Collectors’ bodies for spares as we’ve gone along. It’s the eye of the hurricane in here. Behind us, the Collectors are surely massing to assault our location. Ahead of us is the final fight and I have no idea what to expect next in his house of horrors. We’re all exhausted and stressed and torn between fear and hope. They’re still game, though. I can see the fire and determination in their eyes. It’s been banked a little by the uncertainty over whether the _Normandy_ can get us out of this place but it’s kept burning by the knowledge of the sheer atrocities that have occurred here. 

I’m proud of them, my ragtag band of brothers and sisters. Only a few short months ago, we were almost all strangers. Only a handful of us are soldiers. They were the outcasts, the misfits, the criminals, the outsiders, the loners. Aside from perhaps Samara and maybe Mordin, they were the last people anyone would look at and imagine in this place doing what we’re doing. No one would have called them heroes and yet that’s what they are. They’ve come so far. _We_ have come so far. We still have, as they say, miles to go before we sleep but we wouldn’t have gotten even to where we are now if it weren’t for everything that came in between.

There’s Miranda, the “Cerberus cheerleader,” the ice queen, the epitome of genetic perfection who, as it turns out, is just as flawed and insecure as everyone else. Even now, no one actually wants to follow her but they would have if I’d ordered it and she’d have done better than any of them would expect because she _isn’t_ an ice queen. She’s passionate and loyal and brave. 

Then there’s Jacob, ex-Alliance soldier, considerate, soft-spoken, and riddled with hidden demons and age-old hurts that might never heal. He could have led as well. He’s done it before. He’s smart and knows when to follow the book and when to throw it out. Most of all, though, he truly cares about other people and wants to do the right thing. 

Mordin, salarian, scientist. He talks a lot and his analytical nature makes him somewhat hard to get to know but, in some ways, he’s actually the least complicated one of the lot. He cares, too. He just shows it in extremely awkward ways like sending me porn and calling it educational and overstating risk factors because he’d rather I be too careful instead of not being careful enough and coming to harm. I can almost see him as the awkward, nerdy, over-protective father in a sitcom. He’s probably changed the least outside of Samara, but I suppose that’s to be expected given their stages in life.

Speaking of Samara, she’s chosen to meditate. That doesn’t surprise me a bit. She’s been the hardest to get to know but it’s been worth it. I’ve come to see her as almost a maternal figure. She’s driven, dedicated, reserved, but there’s a deep well of emotion beneath it that she fights hard against. Even once you’ve been allowed inside of her walls, you have to work to stay in. She keeps you in her heart, though, even if she does like to pretend it’s dormant. I’m glad she wasn’t upset that I chose Jack over her. They were both perfectly capable and I probably would have felt more at ease with Samara there, but Jack needed it more than she did. 

Jack is one of the ones who’s changed the most and is one of the ones I’m the proudest of. She was once eaten alive by her demons and on the verge of becoming one herself. She works hard to keep people out but she isn’t as hard or cold or mean as she likes to pretend to be. Once you realize that the crazy biotic bitch has got that scared little girl inside that she needs to keep safe, you understand Jack. She’s a protector, a guardian. She just needed to learn that not everyone on the outside is a monster to be guarded against. Her trust is hard to win but I honestly think it was the most rewarding. Choosing her to hold the barrier was easy. _She_ needed to see that the feral, scarred, psychotic bitch that came out of _Purgatory_ isn’t the same person that’s standing here today. She needed to see that that person has worth and can be trusted just as much as she needed to learn to trust.

Speaking of trust, there’s Thane. He’s another one of my favorites. When I found him, he was almost dead inside. In his own way, he was as full of anger and pain and hatred as Jack. He just hid it better. A killer for hire, a “precise mercenary” as Jacob put it, a mere “weapon” in his own words, a loner by choice, he’s learned the value of having friends by your side when you walk into hell. He still sits with his back to the wall in the mess hall but he now stays there when others come in. He’s formed his own friendships and he’s come alive again aboard the _Normandy_. Some people look at him and can’t see past his reserve. I know better. He has at least as much depth as Samara but the difference is that once you’re inside his walls, you’re in for good unless you betray him. 

Kasumi. Sweet, innocent, romantic little thief. I like her even if she does steal things for a living. She’s simple, uncomplicated, but not without her own depths. She’s smart, kind, loyal, and caring. She pays attention to others and genuinely cares about their lives. She’s still young and a bit naïve but, unfortunately, the galaxy will take care of that soon enough. I just hope it’s patient and doesn’t do it too soon. Her brightness and joy in life are things that should never be snuffed out. 

Another uncomplicated one is Grunt. He’s come a long way for someone who hasn’t been alive for more than a few months. He’s gone from a creature that knew nothing but killing who’d do it indiscriminately simply to feed the drive to a crazed teenager tearing up my cargo hold to an actual person, albeit a simple one. His needs are easy to anticipate and fill. His interests are surprisingly varied. He’s incredibly intelligent and I don’t even feel the need to say “for a krogan” because the first one I really got to know was Wrex and no one could accuse him of being unintelligent. Grunt thrives on mayhem, chaos, and danger but he’s intensely curious as well and is quite endearing in his brutality. 

Zaeed, on the other hand, is a lot more complex than most people give him credit for. Rough and tough on the outside, but there’s a marshmallow beneath that grizzled exterior. I almost wouldn’t believe it after Zorya because, at that point, I’d have sworn he was nothing but a psychopath but I’ve seen his soft side. I only catch it in glimpses here and there but the guy loves kids. I mean absolutely adores, would die for, probably would make an excellent if unconventional father, loves kids. He likes small animals, too. I wouldn’t have guessed that, either, if I hadn’t caught him kneeling down to scratch a pyjak on the chin. He pretended he was tying his boot but I saw him. If he gave half the devotion to a real woman that he gives to Jessie, he’d make a husband any woman would be lucky to have. As long as she could tolerate the filthy mouth, obsession with credits, and absolute refusal to clean anything, that is.

Legion. Now, there’s a strange one. I spent almost a year fighting against the geth. Now I have one on my team and, not only that, but it’s made friends with Tali of all people! I still don’t know why it has a piece of my armor. Sure, there was a hole, but there’s still a hole and it hasn’t bothered to fix that. There are a lot of easier ways it could have patched itself up if that’s what it wanted to do. I think it’s embarrassed to admit the real reason to me and I could be anthropomorphizing in thinking that but it’s the only explanation I can come up with for its refusal to answer. 

Tali is another one. She’s been there from the beginning with me. She’s followed me even when she had every reason to doubt. She’s more than a friend. She’s a sister. She’s grown so much from that innocent child on her Pilgrimage that I met in the Wards. She’s now a leader in her own right, which is why I chose her to get the crew back to safety. Like Jack, she needed it. Her last two teams met with some pretty devastating ends and she needed to see that she could protect her people. I had every faith that she’d get them there safely and she did. I’m so damn proud of her. 

I turn my head to find Garrus looking at me. I’ve saved the best for last. He, honestly, has come the farthest of them all. He’s worn many hats since I met him. An almost rogue cop when I met him, he quickly became a protégé and then a buddy and then a true friend. Since finding him on Omega, he’s been my confidante, my shoulder to lean on, my connection to myself, a home of sorts, and—most recently—lover. I’ve never been more glad to see anyone in my life than on Omega when Archangel took off his helmet and revealed himself to be “my” Garrus. 

I should have realized it then. I don’t know why it took so long for me to figure out that my best friend, the guy who has always been right behind me from the very beginning, the one who’s held my secrets and shared his own, the one who has always been there when I needed him, was also the one I wanted beside me and that I’d loved him forever. I’d always found him ridiculously handsome but had assumed he wouldn’t see me the same way. It took a pretty blatant but awkward opening from him for us to blunder our way into this and I hate that it took us so much time but I’m glad we’ve finally gotten here. 

I also don’t know how the hell I didn’t realize on Omega that he’d loved me from afar for years. I mean, everyone else got on with their lives. Tali went back to the Flotilla, Wrex went back to Tuchanka, Kaidan stayed with the Alliance. Liara found me and then carved a new path but she was still young enough that going back to what she’d done before wasn’t ever going to be likely. Liara didn’t even try to go back. She’d just moved forward. Garrus was the only one who was truly lost. He’d tried to go back to his old life but he’d lost his purpose. A man doesn’t do that simply because he loses a friend. He lost his whole team and still came back to me. He didn’t go racing off into the sunset somewhere else. It was only losing me that made him completely lose his way. 

Even then, though, he’d done it in a way that was so completely Garrus. He’d always hated injustice and red tape and restrictions. So he’d gone somewhere he could make his own rules. He admitted he’d tried to be me. He did a damn good job of it, too, until he was betrayed from the inside. He blames himself for that but once I smacked him upside the head with the fact that I never would have seen it coming, either, and would have likely ended up in the same damn place, he let go of a lot of that blame. Getting rid of Sidonis helped. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I let him choose his own way and he chose to kill but I’m the last person who’s going to judge him. Hell, I’d have done it myself if someone did that to either my old team or my current one, especially if it was one of us who turned. 

When I met him, Garrus was an impulsive hothead with a chip on his shoulder and a desperate need for approval. He was malleable but simultaneously brittle. It was a constant balancing act to find just the right harmony between molding him and breaking him. Going after Saren and winning molded him. Leading his team strengthened him. Losing them and getting through the aftermath tempered him. Like Jack needed to hold the barrier and Tali needed to get her team to safety, Garrus needed to lead again. I don’t know if the Shadow Broker was right about him not reaching his full potential under my wing. Personally, I like to think he was full of shit and that I’ve helped him reach that potential. However, he did need to step outside of my shadow and stand on his own. He’s doing that now. We’ve gone from mentor/protégé to equal partners. I trusted him with the other fire team because he has more experience leading a large squad than I do and I’m going to trust him to hold the door here for the same reason. 

He cocks his head at me and I go to him. I don’t care that the others are watching. Let them watch. Let them see. I pull his forehead down to mine and say, “You are the most amazing man I have ever met, Garrus Vakarian. I’m not me without you.” If we don’t make it through this, it needs to be said.

For once, he isn’t nervous and awkward and he doesn’t give a shit about the others seeing, either. He closes his eyes for a moment and purrs before bringing his hand up to my armored shoulder. “Neither am I,” he says. “So come back alive.” 

“Keep our people safe,” I tell him. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

We part, the moment past, and I climb up onto the platform with Thane and Mordin beside me. My crew looks up expectantly, waiting for a speech. This is it. This is what we’ve been working and training and fighting for. There’s no animosity here, no backbiting, no infighting. There are simply warriors waiting for the final battle, looking to their leader for one last rallying cry to rouse their spirits. They don’t need me for that but I still give it to them, my crew, my family, the people I love.


End file.
